BOOK
REVIEW Making Korea
possible Korea: The
Impossible Countryby Daniel
Tudor Reviewed by James Pearson
The
last sixth months has seen two formative books on
the subject of Korea emerge, both of which
described Korea as somehow "impossible": Victor
Cha’s The Impossible State, a veritable
doorstop that deals with North Korea and, now,
Daniel Tudor’s The Impossible Country,
which deals with the South.
Amusingly,
neither author appeared to be aware of the other’s
title, although it is perhaps noteworthy that
North Korea is treated as a "state", and the
South, as a "country"; somewhat reflecting the
security themes that dominate literature regarding
the former, and the cultural angles present in
literature regarding the latter.
Nevertheless, despite the coincidentally
awkward timing of both
releases, it is perhaps
fitting that Tudor’s The Impossible Country
comes out in an era where the focus on the Korean
peninsula is very much directed towards the North.
Tudor, the Economist Seoul Correspondent,
draws upon his experience and local knowledge as a
journalist to introduce the more unreported Korea
in the South, writing with an authoritative and
informed tone that is the hallmark of his
affiliated magazine.
Furthermore, unlike
the majority of foreign correspondents in Seoul,
Tudor has the natural advantage of actually being
able to speak colloquial Korean well enough to
really get under the skin of issues that affect
Koreans, without the need of a local aide. Such
language requirements might seem obvious, but it
is undoubtedly the case that many foreign
correspondents based in Seoul cannot speak the
local language, unlike a substantial proportion of
their colleagues in Beijing, for example.
The result is a balanced and, more
importantly, up-to-date and relevant book that
manages to avoid the usual traps and cliches that
otherwise make literature on South Korea
incredibly boring or predictable to read (South
Korea is, in fact, anything but boring - and it is
certainly unpredictable.
However, this
does not mean to say that certain historical
perspectives have been ignored: the
English-speaking world’s knowledge of Korea is
fairly limited in comparison to a more
long-standing fascination with Japan and revived
interest in China; and the book therefore begins
with a useful historical overview that will be
boring to some, but informative to others.
Even seasoned Korea watchers, however,
will be interested in certain concepts identified
by Tudor such as the Korean obsession with all
things new, or neophilia to borrow the term used
in Chapter 12. Neophilia, Tudor argues, is a
phenomenon that gives Korea an incredible capacity
for change, but also gives rise to a sort of
social impatience - a character trait that many
Koreans often complain is in their nature and
paves the way for disdain of the old and
admiration for all things new.
Those close
to Korea or the Koreans will know that patience is
a virtue jokingly said to be culturally absent.
Chapter 10 also includes a thoughtful and
informative description of han(the Korean
notion of sorrow and tragedy) that is crucially
balanced by heung, the concept of
happiness, release and joy - an important "yin" to
the "yang" of han that is too often ignored
in English-language literature on Korea.
Furthermore, Tudor attempts to dispel the
myth that Korea is a conservative and isolated
country, as it is often described in the press, by
highlighting the practice of eumju-ga-mu,
ie singing, dancing and drinking in socially
accepted abundance:
"Official tourist literature tends
to downplay the significance of
eumju-ga-mu, since it may not look
sophisticated to outsiders.
However,
visitors to Korea often remark that their most
lasting memories involve experiences like
drinking in a pogang macha (tent bar),
followed by singing and dancing in a
noraebang(karaoke-type room), rather than
visiting one of the "Kimchi Museums" or "Folk
Villages" that they are forever being encouraged
to attend" (p125).
The older
generation of Koreans, Tudor explains, even have a
tendency to spend their holidays on a bus "stocked
with beer, rice wine, and Korean spirits like soju
and a karaoke machine", turning said bus into a
"party on wheels" (p125). Indeed, although much
metaphorical waffle is shared among academic
circles regarding the effects of a traditional
Confucian hierarchy on the relationship between
generations in Korea, it is often the elderly that
seem to be the most progressive, level-headed and
liberated.
Socially speaking, however,
some aspects of Korean culture still remain
utterly conservative. Chapter 27 offers what is
probably the first in-depth look at homosexuality
in contemporary South Korea, including a
discussion on the marginalization of lesbians who
"suffer not merely from prejudice and
misunderstandings about their sexuality but also
from the remnants of general sexism that women are
striving to defeat" (p296). Lesbians in South
Korea, Tudor illustrates, are often ostracized in
both hetrosexual and homosexual communities.
In the same chapter, Tudor speaks to Hong
Seok-chon, a once-revered actor whose career was
ruined after revealing his sexuality to the nation
in the early 2000s. Just over a decade later,
however, Hong describes a "big change, which
happened fast" (p295), and a positive shift in
contemporary Korean attitudes towards
homosexuality.
Thanks to the rise of more
conservative movements, however, Tudor argues such
a trend may not maintain momentum:
Mr Hong feels that, despite the
changes that are taking place, it is unlikely
that society will ever give him and his partner
the same rights as hetrosexual couples, because
of residual Confucianism and the influence of a
more recent arrival, fundamentalist
Christianity. (p297).
Many such
anecdotes are told via extensive interviews with
various Koreans and placed in context as the book
progresses. In this sense, Tudor acts as somewhat
of a cultural curator, letting the Koreans explain
their own cultural oddities and idiosyncrasies,
rather than passing judgement from his own
cultural perspective, in this case a British one.
For a while, Michael Breen's The
Koreans was probably the only book to offer a
comprehensive introduction to Korea that was
well-written, not boring and, above all, relevant.
But it is also out of date, and with a country
that moves as quickly as Korea, this kind of book
is welcome, a point Breen himself makes in the
blurb.
Indeed, while Tudor has done well
to "fill the gap", as Breen points out, it is
still regrettable that this is a gap almost always
filled from the outside, and not from within.
Although the nationality of the author
need not matter when painting a picture of one
culture or society for the reader (as Alexis de
Tocquville's Democray in Americaso famously
illustrates), it is perhaps a shame that
well-intentioned introductions to Korean culture
written by the Koreans themselves draw heavy focus
on the comparatively boring topics of food, K-pop
or ancient history, rather than encapsulate the
real, omnipresent and at times controversial Korea
that is actually of interest to a non-Korean
audience.
Inevitably, some topics are
unavoidable and early chapters therefore retain a
strong focus on the philosophies and religions of
early Korea. Crucially, however, these concepts
are discussed in the context of how they affect
contemporary society and look forward, not
backwards.
In exploring Shamanism, the
indigenous Korean practice of summoning spirits,
Tudor visits and interviews a
musok-in(Korean shaman) who advises him
never to wear anything blue - an unnecessary
detail, but one that literally adds color to a
topic that has traditionally remained the domain
of drawn-out and poorly-written books that,
although frequently referenced in academic
manuscript, are probably not actually enjoyed by
anyone.
Indeed, even in Korea, Shamanism
is widely practiced but rarely discussed. This,
Tudor argues, demonstrates its intriguing
paradoxical nature as a "non-mainstream set of
activities that are in fact integral to Korean
culture" (p31) - a fitting line for the rest of
the Impossible Country that promises to
introduce even the saltiest of old Korean-watching
sea dogs to new ideas and concepts that they may
have not yet explored.
Korea: The
Impossible Country by Daniel Tudor (Tuttle
Publishing, Nov 10, 2012). ISBN:
978-0-8048-4252-5. Price US$22.95, 336 pages.
James Pearson is editor of
koreaBANG(www.koreabang.com), a daily-updated site
that translates popular trends from the South
Korean internet from Korean into English. He can
be followed on twitter @pearswick
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